Nothing Is Promised

For better, for worse. In sickness and in health. It's a legal vow of care for families in 2050, a world beset by waves of climate-driven plagues. Power engineer Lucía Ramirez long ago lost her family to one - she'd give anything to take that vow. The Power Islands give humanity a fighting chance, but tending kelp farms and solar lilies is a lonely job. The housing AI found her a family match, saying she should fit right in with the Senegalese retraining expert who's a force of nature, the ex-Pandemic Corps cook with his own cozy channel, and even the writer who insists everything is stories, all the way down. This family of literal and metaphorical refugees could be the shelter she's seeking from her own personal storm. She needs this one to work. Then an unscheduled power outage and a missing turtle-bot crack open a mystery. Something isn't right on Power Island One, but every step she takes to solve it, someone else gets there first - and they're determined to make her unsee what she's seen. Lucía is an engineer, not a detective, but fixing this problem might cost her the one thing she truly needs: a home. When You Had Power is the first of four tightly connected novels in a new hopepunk series. It's about our future, how society will shift and flex like a solar lily in the storms of our own making, and how breaks in the social fabric have to be expected, tended to, and healed. Because we're in this together, now more than ever before.

The choice you make is the future you create. Climate-driven plagues haunt humanity, and it's Regional Director Zuri Hill-Gray's job to keep the clean-energy grid running. Zuri has the perfect life - a beautiful home on the Hillstead, a loving family, and a powerful job keeping the LA Basin's grid humming. If only she didn't see the ghost of her dead twin in the mirror. Her grief-counselor husband understands too much, her Aunties Cora and Vivian smother her to excess, and her mother can't look at her daughter without seeing the half that's missing. Zuri can't begin to face her sister's little daughter - to Ruby, Zuri is the ghost. Which is why she's running away to work, again, on the anniversary of her sister's death. Then a power engineer walks into Zuri's office and claims someone is stealing energy from Power Island One - and they've tried to kill her to cover it up. The more Zuri digs, the more it's clear someone's been tinkering in the shut-down fusion labs. They're going to dangerous lengths to hide it, and it's been happening right under her nose. Which is how Regional Directors lose their jobs. Zuri's already lost her better half - she can't afford to lose this, too. You Knew the Price is the second of four tightly connected novels in a new hopepunk series. It's about our future, how society lives on invisible things, like electricity and trust, that are far too easy to break... and how our most difficult moments are often when we discover the only path forward is healing not just ourselves but the world.

Of Kindness and Kilowatts is the third of four tightly-connected novels in a new hopepunk series. It's about our future, how society lives on invisible things, like electricity and trust, that are far too easy to break... and how our most difficult moments are often when we discover the only path forward is healing not just ourselves but the world.

When the world is drowning, diplomacy is more than handshakes and headlines. Nitara Desai has spent her life negotiating international agreements, easing points of conflict, and averting disasters. Worst-case scenarios belong in her nightmares, not the IEC's daily reports. On a calm day, being a director at the International Energy Consortium only requires fixing CarbonCon translators for flustered Brazilian delegates. A thankless job, but the world is still drowning in CO2-there's no choice but to keep treading. On a bad day, it's not just the Brazilians acting up, but the Americans walking out, and now the Governor of Southern California insisting on a clandestine meeting. Then a text comes from Matti, her solid rock in the stormy seas: Guess what? We're getting married! Suddenly, an earthquake is slow-rolling through her personal life as well. She waited too long: to tell Matti how she feels, to quit the unwinnable race to net zero, to grab hold of the things that make life worth living, not just trying to stay afloat. When the governor reveals an impossible technology that could save the planet, but it's in the hands of a murderously ambitious man, it's a catastrophe she can't turn away from. And it's almost enough to distract her from everything falling apart. Work first, always. And maybe that's been the problem all along. Yet You Cry When It Hurts is the fourth of four tightly-connected hopepunk novels in a near-future climate-fiction series. It's about our future, how the forces of greed are ever-present, how the fight for a just world never ends, and how it's not strongmen who will save us but the bright cords of connection that hold the world together. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Nothing is Promised.